Valve has been sending notifications to customers who purchased From Dust on Steam offering refunds on the god game over its DRM requiring online authentication, reports Rock, Paper, Shotgun. This follows indications last week that some customers were able to get such refunds which were not confirmed at the time, and Monday's announcement that this aspect of the game's DRM will be removed by a patch within a couple of weeks. Here's the email reproduced on RPS:

Ubisoft has just announced that they are working on a patch that will eliminate the need for any online authentication for From Dust. The patch will release in approximately two weeks.

If you don't want to wait or the patch or if you haven't played the game, per Ubisoft's request, we will issue refunds for this title.

If you would still like your purchase of From Dust to be refunded, please reply to this ticket.

Creston wrote on Aug 24, 2011, 16:43:Now, are the piracy numbers that are being reduced through DRM (and that actually lead to would-be pirates going out and buying the game) enough to offset the lost sales? We don't really know. But seeing as how DRM rarely works (it's usually cracked before the game is even out), I'm going to say that, no, it doesn't.

I've got to back you up there. As long as a hacker can get the binaries and is not averse to going at the code at the assembly-level, you will *Always* see cracked versions of the software, regardless of the DRM. Period.

Steam games have been cracked to not require SteamSecuROM games have been hacked to eliminate disc checksUbi games have been hacked to eliminate the pings to home.

DRM doesn't stop the hardcore pirate hacker; it just does what any other lock does: it keeps honest people honest.

The real question becomes when does DRM go too far?

Would you want 5 locks, a deadbolt, a retinal scanner, glucose tester, and a thumbprint reader just to open the door to your home?

Probably not.

Well, maybe nin would think that hardware would be cool, but besides him

Ruffiana wrote on Aug 24, 2011, 13:39:Common sense says if you lock something up, it's less likely to be stolen.

That same common sense would say that if you lock something up with a lock that simply doesn't work, it's not going to have a fuck's worth of effect.

Otherwise, you have no proof that it doesn't stop piracy, so your statement is an arguement from ignorance.

You sound like a toddler at a playground. "NO, YOU NEED TO PROVE IT FIRST!!!!!"

Unarguably, it probably does to some degree

Those two things contradict each other. And there's no probably about it, it most assuredly affects sales, because I refuse to buy From Dust solely and alone because of the DRM crap.

Now, are the piracy numbers that are being reduced through DRM (and that actually lead to would-be pirates going out and buying the game) enough to offset the lost sales? We don't really know. But seeing as how DRM rarely works (it's usually cracked before the game is even out), I'm going to say that, no, it doesn't.

I would argue that that's a smaller demographic than people who might be casual pirates.

It's possible. I think there's no such thing as a "casual pirate" anymore, however. If someone wants to pirate something, it literally takes 3 minutes to figure out how to do so. So the few utter Luddites who would have copied a game from a friend that are being thwarted by the DRM and then can't figure how to still get it for free anyways, are not very likely to offset the fairly widestream negative backlash that DRM has. Several thousand negative reviews on Amazon tend to get the word out fairly well.

but ultimately DRM is not there to help make more money through inconveniencing legitimate customers

I don't really give a flying frak if DRM is there to offer free blowjobs to the entire continental USA. The EFFECT of DRM is that all it fucking does is to inconvenience customers, all because dipshit investors think that it helps combat piracy.

it's a genuine concern for capital investmeent in an industry that needs a lot of capital to operate.

And it's a genuine fucking nuisance to legitimate customers, who are being declared pirates before they've even had the damn game in their hands.

Hey, to each their own. I refuse to buy games with bullshit DRM on them. The rest of the entire argument is just speculation on BOTH SIDES.

Have there been any statistically significant studies done on how well/what kind of DRM affects piracy rates and sales, both negatively (by turning off potential buyers) and positively (by converting an illegal download into a sale)?

There must be. I can't imagine companies spending the time/money/effort building DRM systems unless they expected to recoop the costs. Has anyone seen a CBA? The costs for DRM, especially online DRM with it's constantly online servers, have pretty big upfront and maintenance costs in personnel, hardware, and other resources.

Satoru wrote on Aug 24, 2011, 13:08:One time online activation has been extremely effective against games being released before their street date. Pre-street date releases of PC games are pretty much in the minority now. Where as on the console side it's still a major problem.

I'm not sure about that, I think if I go back over the past two years there have been a fair number of pre-release leaks of PC titles with online activation. There's nothing really tying online activation to less pre-release piracy that can't also be the result of a dozen other factors.

I don't agree with your conclusion either, I think if anything it would be more related to the fact that digital distribution has taken over to a large extent that many of the old sources for early PC releases simply aren't around anymore. Most pre-release leaks come from review and retail sources. Publishers have wisened up to this in many ways and delay shipments as long as possible. They've also started using better methods of tracking review copies or sourcing them via DD sites.

The PC AAA side of the industry has largely waned while the consoles became more prevalent. Console games need more advance notice for many reasons so they probably get their copies much sooner and due to their increased popularity it is a lot easier to get your hands on a game pre-release and upload it somewhere.

Your Wrong, HAWX 2. There are no known cracks for that game. Itís one of those games where the Scene has not put a lot of effort into cracking. Again, they sit, wait and buy it when itís cheap.

He's not wrong then, it's not unbreakable it's just that no one cares. The same scheme has been used in other titles and was circumvented.

I disagree Verno, until an actual crack comes out its unbreakable. Thatís a win for Ubi. Try and word it any way you like, but there are no cracks for this game. So, Iím right in what I said. This also leads Ubi to belive their methods are working.

And because there is no solid proof there is a God he must exist? That is basically what you are saying.

People said Game Cube was "uncrackable" because there was nothing out there to run unsigned games for a really long time but it was because no one gave a shit. No one was really putting mass effort into it like they did with XBox and PS2.

Saying something 'is' because there is no proof it 'is not' is just stupid.

Ok, so your one of those nut jobs that also believes just because you canít see the Air your breathing that there is none either? Just donít hold your breath to long. Iím sure everything is breakable, of that thereís no question if you want to spend the time doing it. Scene crackers will not spend an excessive amount of time trying to crack a game. Especially one that is not main stream. Take Assassins Creed 2 or 3, canít recall the exact one that started all of the online persistent crap.

That game had how many cracks released because of all the hidden content that activated as you went and had to pull down the extra content so the game could continue? A lot! If that game wasnít a main stream game it would not have been cracked. HAWX 2 is another one of those games. There are so many GPS links to the online content that they just dropped this game because they felt it wasnít worth the time or effort to even crack it. To me thatís a product thatís unbreakable and a win for Ubi. Their methods of this type of DRM is working wither you all admit it or not it is. If Ubi makes is so difficult to break their scheme then they win if the scene deems it not worth the effort.

Ill also add that publishers deem a win if they can keep a game from being cracked within the first month of release. To them thatís success because the people who canít wait for a games to be cracked might eventually buy it. Again they feel this is a win because their DRM did what they wanted it to do.

Darks wrote on Aug 24, 2011, 15:39:Iím not buttheurt, Iím just saying that until thereís an actual crack for the game. Then itís designated uncrackable. Whether they are trying to crack it or wanting to is no different. Itís still a game thatís sitting there uncracked. So explain to me the difference? All Iím pointing out is that Ubi can use this to gage their reasoning into their DRM success even though we all disagree with their doing it.

First off, you said unbreakable, not "uncrackable". Second just because it's currently uncracked doesn't mean it cannot be cracked. If you can't understand the fundamental difference between those two concepts I don't know what more to say to you. If Ubisoft wants to look at HAWX2 as a DRM success then who cares? They will release a game people care about with the same DRM and it'll be cracked anyway.

There are few methods of protection that are truly unbreakable and most involve removing product ownership in a literal sense and delivering the product(usually via stream) to your customer. I mean, the whole industry excuse about DRM for the past two years has been preventing zero day piracy so even the industry assumes that things will be cracked and that it's a matter of time.

Satoru wrote on Aug 24, 2011, 13:08:One time online activation has been extremely effective against games being released before their street date. Pre-street date releases of PC games are pretty much in the minority now. Where as on the console side it's still a major problem.

I'm not sure about that, I think if I go back over the past two years there have been a fair number of pre-release leaks of PC titles with online activation. There's nothing really tying online activation to less pre-release piracy that can't also be the result of a dozen other factors.

I don't agree with your conclusion either, I think if anything it would be more related to the fact that digital distribution has taken over to a large extent that many of the old sources for early PC releases simply aren't around anymore. Most pre-release leaks come from review and retail sources. Publishers have wisened up to this in many ways and delay shipments as long as possible. They've also started using better methods of tracking review copies or sourcing them via DD sites.

The PC AAA side of the industry has largely waned while the consoles became more prevalent. Console games need more advance notice for many reasons so they probably get their copies much sooner and due to their increased popularity it is a lot easier to get your hands on a game pre-release and upload it somewhere.

Your Wrong, HAWX 2. There are no known cracks for that game. Itís one of those games where the Scene has not put a lot of effort into cracking. Again, they sit, wait and buy it when itís cheap.

He's not wrong then, it's not unbreakable it's just that no one cares. The same scheme has been used in other titles and was circumvented.

I disagree Verno, until an actual crack comes out its unbreakable. Thatís a win for Ubi. Try and word it any way you like, but there are no cracks for this game. So, Iím right in what I said. This also leads Ubi to belive their methods are working.

And because there is no solid proof there is a God he must exist? That is basically what you are saying.

People said Game Cube was "uncrackable" because there was nothing out there to run unsigned games for a really long time but it was because no one gave a shit. No one was really putting mass effort into it like they did with XBox and PS2.

Saying something 'is' because there is no proof it 'is not' is just stupid.

One might also point out that if Hawx had "unbreakable DRM", EVERYONE would be using it, and nothing would be crackable anymore...

Yeah exactly. It doesn't function differently than other UbiDRM used in their other offerings either, its just time consuming and HAWX2 isn't a big name release that groups will get any e-cred for cracking.

Funny how you always have a way of trying to twist things around to make it sound like youíre always right. And youíre not!

Using logic isn't twisting something and I have no idea why you are so butthurt about someone disagreeing with you.

Iím not buttheurt, Iím just saying that until thereís an actual crack for the game. Then itís designated uncrackable. Whether they are trying to crack it or wanting to is no different. Itís still a game thatís sitting there uncracked. So explain to me the difference? All Iím pointing out is that Ubi can use this to gage their reasoning into their DRM success even though we all disagree with their doing it.

One might also point out that if Hawx had "unbreakable DRM", EVERYONE would be using it, and nothing would be crackable anymore...

Yeah exactly. It doesn't function differently than other UbiDRM used in their other offerings either, its just time consuming and HAWX2 isn't a big name release that groups will get any e-cred for cracking.

Funny how you always have a way of trying to twist things around to make it sound like youíre always right. And youíre not!

Using logic isn't twisting something and I have no idea why you are so butthurt about someone disagreeing with you. The fact that a Ubisoft game isn't cracked doesn't make it unbreakable. That's like arguing a drinking glass is unbreakable until someone drops it.

This kind of thinking is largely a fallacy now though. Most piracy is casual in nature these days. We're not in the days of people burning disks for friends anymore, the public at large is a lot more tech savvy than given credit for and I doubt most people even use the dvd drives in their computers anymore.

A more simple line of thought is does the bad PR from DRM outweigh other considerations? Ubisoft obviously seems to think so but I doubt their reasoning is rooted in any logical rationale. There are more sane approaches to DRM that other companies employ successfully without impacting consumer experiences to this degree.

I disagree Verno, until an actual crack comes out its unbreakable. Thatís a win for Ubi. Try and word it any way you like, but there are no cracks for this game. So, Iím right in what I said. This also leads Ubi to belive their methods are working.

If you want to quibble about the wording then go right ahead but its not unbreakable, it's uncracked and we all know why. We've already wasted more words on HAWX 2 than it probably had in terms of buyers so frankly who gives a shit anyway. If a single unbreakable game existed would that suddenly proven the efficacy of DRM? No it wouldn't because then someone would have to explain its numerous failures too.

Funny how you always have a way of trying to twist things around to make it sound like youíre always right. And youíre not!

I disagree Verno, until an actual crack comes out its unbreakable. Thatís a win for Ubi. Try and word it any way you like, but there are no cracks for this game. So, Iím right in what I said. This also leads Ubi to belive their methods are working.

If you want to quibble about the wording then go right ahead but its not unbreakable, it's uncracked and we all know why.

One might also point out that if Hawx had "unbreakable DRM", EVERYONE would be using it, and nothing would be crackable anymore...

but ultimately DRM is not there to help make more money through inconveniencing legitimate customers.

...yes it is. That is the only thing it does. It only affects legit customers. They don't make any money off pirates so inconveniencing pirates makes no difference. Inconveniencing legit customers is how they make more money.

For example if I go and buy a DVD, watch it and then hand it to my friend to watch it the company that made the DVD doesn't like this. They do not have the freedom to police this kind of thing like software developers do.

Software developers can build systems into their software to watch what you are doing and make the software stop working if you do something they don't like.

So after watching my DVD in my example above if I tried to loan it to my friend he would get an error. Herp has already watched this movie on his DVD player so you're not allowed to watch it on yours. So derp who wants to watch the movie can either be inconvenienced to go watch the movie and Herp's house or go buy another copy so he can watch it on his own movie player.

DRM is all about inconveniencing paying customers because they believe that people will simply pay them rather than dealing with those inconveniences.

The Online Pass system is a perfect example. Your friend bought madden and you'd like to borrow it. The software works when you stick it in your console but certain features don't...which is annoying. But you can pay $10 to not be annoyed...isn't that worth it? This copy of the game is paid for but we're still going to annoy you because you'll probably just pay us...right?

This kind of thinking is largely a fallacy these days though. Most piracy is casual in nature these days. We're not in the days of people burning disks for friends anymore, the public at large is a lot more tech savvy than given credit for and I doubt most people even use the dvd drives in their computers anymore.

A more simple consideration is does the bad PR from DRM outweigh other considerations? Ubisoft obviously seems to think so but I doubt their reasoning is rooted in any logical rationale. There are more sane approaches to DRM that other companies employ successfully without impacting consumer experiences to this degree.

Interesting tidbit inc... A pirated copy of From Dust is available, but not one for Deus Ex : )

I imagine there are many factors at play, but it is interesting from a quick-look point of view.

This kind of thinking is largely a fallacy now though. Most piracy is casual in nature these days. We're not in the days of people burning disks for friends anymore, the public at large is a lot more tech savvy than given credit for and I doubt most people even use the dvd drives in their computers anymore.

A more simple line of thought is does the bad PR from DRM outweigh other considerations? Ubisoft obviously seems to think so but I doubt their reasoning is rooted in any logical rationale. There are more sane approaches to DRM that other companies employ successfully without impacting consumer experiences to this degree.

I disagree Verno, until an actual crack comes out its unbreakable. Thatís a win for Ubi. Try and word it any way you like, but there are no cracks for this game. So, Iím right in what I said. This also leads Ubi to belive their methods are working.

If you want to quibble about the wording then go right ahead but its not unbreakable, it's uncracked and we all know why. We've already wasted more words on HAWX 2 than it probably had in terms of buyers so frankly who gives a shit anyway. If a single unbreakable game existed would that suddenly proven the efficacy of DRM? No it wouldn't because then someone would have to explain its numerous failures too.

You have no idea whether it does or not. You THINK it does, but that's not cold hard fact. You have no numbers one way or the other.

Common sense says if you lock something up, it's less likely to be stolen. Otherwise, you have no proof that it doesn't stop piracy, so your statement is an arguement from ignorance.

Does DRM affect sales? Unarguably, it probably does to some degree. There's at least one person who will not buy a game because of its DRM. Probably fewer than the total number of peopel who claim they won't buy a game because of the DRM, but ultimately end up buying it anyway because they really want to play it.

But one has to both 1) be ware of the DRM being used and 2) care enough about the inconvenience of that DRM to avoid buying the game they want to play. I would argue that that's a smaller demographic than people who might be casual pirates...ie, the type of person willing to burn a copy of a game they've bought on to a DVD for their friends or family. I certainly know my own family was guilty of this for years before DRM started really being implemented. But thinking that the stringent anti-DRM gamers represent a majority of customers is about as misguided as thinking that the Tea-Partyers represent the majority of America.

Ultimately, none of us have access to the data that could prove how effective or in-effective DRM is towards the bottom line, but ultimately DRM is not there to help make more money through inconveniencing legitimate customers. DRM is there to help make the people investing millions of dollars into developing a game and bringing it to market feel safer that their investement isn't just going to vanish into the ether of unlimited digital duplication and distribution through piracy. It doesn't matter if that fear is largely unfounded, or misplaced...it's a genuine concern for capital investmeent in an industry that needs a lot of capital to operate.

Satoru wrote on Aug 24, 2011, 13:08:One time online activation has been extremely effective against games being released before their street date. Pre-street date releases of PC games are pretty much in the minority now. Where as on the console side it's still a major problem.

I'm not sure about that, I think if I go back over the past two years there have been a fair number of pre-release leaks of PC titles with online activation. There's nothing really tying online activation to less pre-release piracy that can't also be the result of a dozen other factors.

I don't agree with your conclusion either, I think if anything it would be more related to the fact that digital distribution has taken over to a large extent that many of the old sources for early PC releases simply aren't around anymore. Most pre-release leaks come from review and retail sources. Publishers have wisened up to this in many ways and delay shipments as long as possible. They've also started using better methods of tracking review copies or sourcing them via DD sites.

The PC AAA side of the industry has largely waned while the consoles became more prevalent. Console games need more advance notice for many reasons so they probably get their copies much sooner and due to their increased popularity it is a lot easier to get your hands on a game pre-release and upload it somewhere.

Your Wrong, HAWX 2. There are no known cracks for that game. Itís one of those games where the Scene has not put a lot of effort into cracking. Again, they sit, wait and buy it when itís cheap.

He's not wrong then, it's not unbreakable it's just that no one cares. The same scheme has been used in other titles and was circumvented.

I disagree Verno, until an actual crack comes out its unbreakable. Thatís a win for Ubi. Try and word it any way you like, but there are no cracks for this game. So, Iím right in what I said. This also leads Ubi to belive their methods are working.